Hainan Airlines, founding member of Hainan Aviation Group (HNA), launched GX Airlines, Guangxi’s first airline headquartered in Nanning, on 13 February 2015, with the latter’s inaugural scheduled flight from Nanning to Haikou at 10.05 am using an EMB190 aircraft leased from Tianjin Airlines (Hainan Airlines’ Tianjin-based subsidiary) after GX Airlines received its Air Operator Certificate (AOC) on the same day. The EMB190 aircraft first arrived in Nanning from Tianjin in GX Airlines’ livery on 1 February.

The name GX Airlines is the commercial name in short for Guangxi Beibu Gulf Airlines Co., Ltd, which was formed by Tianjin Airlines and Guangxi Beibu Gulf Investments Group in Nanning. Tianjin Airlines has a seventy per cent stake (21 billion yuan) in GX Airlines while Guangxi Beibu Gulf Investments Group has a thirty per cent stake (9 billion yuan) in the new airline.

The logo of GX Airlines is a stylized wave-shaped abbreviation GX short for Guangxi written with a Chinese brush while the hibiscus red colour of its aircraft livery symbolizes the passion, friendliness and warmth of the Guangxi residents.

GX Airlines has plans to increase its current fleet of 5 EMB190 aircraft to 10 in 2015 and is gradually launching new flights on the following routes this summer, Nanning – Jinjiang – Yiwu, Nanning – Zhengzhou – Hohhot and Nanning – Mianyang – Yinchuan. Currently, GX Airlines flies from Nanning to Haikou (departing Haikou at 8.05 pm daily), Sanya (morning flight), to Linxi via Changsha, to Tianjin via Yichang and to Xi’An via Bijie, a town in Guizhou Province.

GX Airlines also has plans to launch international flights to two Southeast Asian capitals by end of this year to facilitate Guangxi Nanning’s flourishing trade and tourist traffic with Southeast Asia. Capitals under consideration include Bangkok, Vientiane, Hanoi, Singapore and Phnom Penh.

GX Airlines is the third domestic airline launched by Hainan Airlines within a year, after Urumqi Air (August 2014) and Fuzhou Airlines (in October 2014). Hainan Airlines also plans to launch Guilin Airlines before end of 2015.

The inflight magazine of GX Airlines is High Above, the inflight magazine also available onboard other HNA Airlines (Hainan Airlines, Changan Airlines, Shanxi Airlines, Grand China Air, West Air, Lucky Air, Deer Jet, Beijing Capital Airlines, Hongkong Airlines, Tianjin Airlines, Urumqi Air, Fuzhou Airlines and soon-to-be-launched Guilin Airlines).

In the late 1990s, Guangxi Province had a short-lived domestic airline known as Guangxi Airlines, which was absorbed by Guangzhou-headquartered China Southern Airlines, renamed as China Southern Airlines Guangxi Company Limited and marketed in the name of China Southern.